Stellaris Dev Diary #283 - The Vision of First Contact

[andredz]

The way we implemented most of them is that lower ages are less likely to trigger Awareness increases for stuff going on in-system.

A Stone Age civilization might have a 1% chance to notice something an Early Space Age civilization with a Radio Telescope is almost certain to notice.

What does it entail for a Stone Age civilization to notice something? Surely there is not just 1 worldwide civilization.

Say, for example, that aliens built the Mayan pyramids and the Mayans noticed, would that count as the whole planet noticing?

 

[JackHazardous]

IS the DLc out yet? :U

I wnana buy it NAO

What does it entail for a Stone Age civilization to notice something? Surely there is not just 1 worldwide civilization.

Say, for example, that aliens built the Mayan pyramids and the Mayans noticed, would that count as the whole planet noticing?

If the Mayans noticed, they'd have records on it that would be discovered through archaeology. I chose to think it will be implemented as (early civilization accepts it as magic and moves on, but when they evolve to say an atomic age empire, they might take a second look at these artifacts and realize they're of alien origin) just some way for your technology to be implemented in their mythos

 

[Libertine Angel]

Dude...

That screenshot explicitly says it was just a European phenomenon, there very much was no such thing as a global Renaissance Age. The Renaissance as a concept only really exists in contrast to the preceding European Dark Ages, which were concurrent with the Islamic Golden Age - flattening pre-FTL interactions to unify the world before its time is not only ahistorical but loses a lot of potential interaction choices, such as choosing to support specific nations or other such intraplanetary factions depending on their individual ethics.

I know it might not be too high on the priority list, but I would love for Envoys to be a full-fledged leader class with levels and such. Or at least being able to hire as many as I want. I can get a few from the Interstellar Assembly and Orbital Embassy, but its' still not enough.

We've been asking for that pretty much since Envoys were announced and I still don't understand the opposition. Not only would it eliminate the hard cap (which I don't think anyone particularly likes), but they could have individual traits & skills like other leaders that would make them suited to one job over another, e.g. one might be an expert lobbyist that boosts Diplomatic Weight further while another could have a talent for espionage which makes them grow Spy Networks quicker.

 

[CheerfulGoth]

Will Minamar Specialized Industries be a pre-made civilization?

Yes - and while I understand the concerns, it's a choice we made for a reason.
Many of our narrative-heavy origins (Shoulder of Giants, Toxic God) focus on giving your empire an unique background. This time we wanted to try something different: giving players a memorable enemy, and letting you free to decide how you want to deal with it. It's like having your own personal mini-crisis, in a sense.

By making the MSI a regular empire, instead of an enclave, players can write a story through their own actions instead of having to go through a pre-scripted storyline. We hope this choice will ultimately make the origins more replayable.

I'm very amused that the talk is about moving from a less dystopian view of the future after a couple sort of violent packs.

Annnnd the very first origin is escaped slaves, and the second is fighting off an alien invasion.

Ah, but it's about fighting an alien invasion and winning! An uplifting, heartwarming story! About revenge!

 

[OnyxAbussos]

LOVE IT!!!

Thank you.

I'm guessing that Fear of the Dark means that a planet killer weapon was used in your system while you were still Primitive? Sounds completely epic. Can't wait!

 

[klopkr]

KNOCKING IT OUT OF THE PARK! Hell yeah i've been waiting for this pack for ages and it's sooo exciting!

 

[Kakotheres]

Many of our narrative-heavy origins (Shoulder of Giants, Toxic God) focus on giving your empire an unique background. This time we wanted to try something different: giving players a memorable enemy, and letting you free to decide how you want to deal with it. It's like having your own personal mini-crisis, in a sense.

By making the MSI a regular empire, instead of an enclave, players can write a story through their own actions instead of having to go through a pre-scripted storyline. We hope this choice will ultimately make the origins more replayable.

Does this mean it's possible to play MSI against AI with these origins or do they not have content in that way?

 

[Idle America]

Yes - and while I understand the concerns, it's a choice we made for a reason.
Many of our narrative-heavy origins (Shoulder of Giants, Toxic God) focus on giving your empire an unique background. This time we wanted to try something different: giving players a memorable enemy, and letting you free to decide how you want to deal with it. It's like having your own personal mini-crisis, in a sense.

I never said anything about concerns. Personally, I love the idea!

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Yes - and while I understand the concerns, it's a choice we made for a reason.
Many of our narrative-heavy origins (Shoulder of Giants, Toxic God) focus on giving your empire an unique background. This time we wanted to try something different: giving players a memorable enemy, and letting you free to decide how you want to deal with it. It's like having your own personal mini-crisis, in a sense.

By making the MSI a regular empire, instead of an enclave, players can write a story through their own actions instead of having to go through a pre-scripted storyline. We hope this choice will ultimately make the origins more replayable.

I think this is perfectly fine for when a player has the origin, but if I'm not playing one of them should I still expect to see Minimar in almost every galaxy because a randomly generated AI spawns an origin that creates them?

If randomly generated AI empires can have these origins, I think I'd like to have a game setting for whether random AIs (but not players or force spawned empires) can spawn with one. Maybe even a slider that sets the odds for how likely Minimar is to spawn? e.g.:

• If a player or force-spawned empire has a Minimar origin, randomly generated empires can also have Minimar origins.
• Otherwise, the slider determines the chance that Minimar origins are allowed for random empires. If they're allowed, any number of empires can have a related origin, but if they're not allowed none will. i.e. the slider has no effect on how likely any specific random-spawn empire is to have a Minimar origin, just whether or not they're allowed to at all.

 

[LystAP]

By making the MSI a regular empire, instead of an enclave, players can write a story through their own actions instead of having to go through a pre-scripted storyline. We hope this choice will ultimately make the origins more replayable.

So what happens if MSI gets destroyed before meeting the player? If I recall, Stellaris Invicta Season 1 almost had the problem where the Tyrum also got walloped by their neighbors. Will MSI have some perks that keep a neighboring advanced start genocidal from eating it?

 

[Olterin]

I think this is perfectly fine for when a player has the origin, but if I'm not playing one of them should I still expect to see Minimar in almost every galaxy because a randomly generated AI spawns an origin that creates them?

If randomly generated AI empires can have these origins, I think I'd like to have a game setting for whether random AIs (but not players or force spawned empires) can spawn with one. Maybe even a slider that sets the odds for how likely Minimar is to spawn? e.g.:

• If a player or force-spawned empire has a Minimar origin, randomly generated empires can also have Minimar origins.
• Otherwise, the slider determines the chance that Minimar origins are allowed for random empires. If they're allowed, any number of empires can have a related origin, but if they're not allowed none will. i.e. the slider has no effect on how likely any specific random-spawn empire is to have a Minimar origin, just whether or not they're allowed to at all.

A slider dedicated to one singular pre-scripted empire seems a bit overkill, but given that there are now several origins that come with essentially pre-scripted 'parent' empires, perhaps a checkbox or slider to determine the amount of empire spawns that come with such baggage attached? This would in my view then also encompass Hegemon, Federation, Lost Colony, and the Overlord origins. This would allow us to decide just how many extra empires spawn in, and (depending on just what gets included in the list of "spawn/no spawn") perhaps also how random the galaxy is.

 

[Ajacoba]

I think this is perfectly fine for when a player has the origin, but if I'm not playing one of them should I still expect to see Minimar in almost every galaxy because a randomly generated AI spawns an origin that creates them?

If randomly generated AI empires can have these origins, I think I'd like to have a game setting for whether random AIs (but not players or force spawned empires) can spawn with one. Maybe even a slider that sets the odds for how likely Minimar is to spawn? e.g.:

• If a player or force-spawned empire has a Minimar origin, randomly generated empires can also have Minimar origins.
• Otherwise, the slider determines the chance that Minimar origins are allowed for random empires. If they're allowed, any number of empires can have a related origin, but if they're not allowed none will. i.e. the slider has no effect on how likely any specific random-spawn empire is to have a Minimar origin, just whether or not they're allowed to at all.

I think you're worrying way too much
it's just two origins out of several dozen, the odds that either of them (or both of them) repeteadly appear in your campaigns are exceedingly low
we have 29 origins right now, meaning we will soon have 32, only two of those would have Minimar, which is like 6% or a little bit more than 1 in 20 games
meanwhile all your custom empires (and the default ones) can supposedly spawn with a 5% chance and I definitely don't have one of them in each of my campaigns unless I intentionally forcespawn them

 

[Des Cuddlebat]

I think you're worrying way too much
it's just two origins out of several dozen, the odds that either of them (or both of them) repeteadly appear in your campaigns are exceedingly low
we have 29 origins right now, meaning we will soon have 32, only two of those would have Minimar, which is like 6% or a little bit more than 1 in 20 games
meanwhile all your custom empires (and the default ones) can supposedly spawn with a 5% chance and I definitely don't have one of them in each of my campaigns unless I intentionally forcespawn them

1 in 20 origin rolls, not 1 in 20 games, most games will have numerous AI species each with their origin to roll; A game with 11 AI empires rolling for origin is enough to make a 1/16 (*) roll more likely to happen than not

* You also rounded back and forth in the same direction for some reason - you started with 2 in 32 origins == 1 in 16, rounded that from 6.25% to 6%, and then converted back to fraction form, 1 in 20 (5%)

Either way I don't think we know enough to jump to conclusions, it might as well be only Minimar that can spawn and the other two subsequently force-spawned, or the Minimar spawning might function more like a default empire, or maybe the Minimar will still be a randomized empire enough for the common spawn not to matter

 

[bear1111]

Hello everyone!

Earlier this week we announced that the First Contact Story Pack is arriving later this quarter, alongside the 3.7 “Canis Minor” update.

Today we’ll combine a quick summary of some of the features and go into why we wanted to do this Story Pack.

Wishlist First Contact​

We’ve been eager to expand the interactions you have with pre-FTL civilizations for quite a while - some of the designs in First Contact date back to things we wanted to explore back during Federations, Nemesis, and Overlord. After some consideration, we decided that they had a strong enough theme to expand into the core of a full Story Pack.

The last few years have featured a handful of relatively dark expansions - Necroids, Nemesis, Overlord, and Toxoids all leaned towards authoritarian or dystopian themes, and while Aquatics was more neutral, we felt it was time for a more positive, utopian release.

It’s been quite a while since our last Story Pack, so this seemed like a great opportunity to unleash the might of our Content Designers.

Look to the Stars, and Tell the Heavens Your Story​

The Pre-FTL experience in Stellaris has generally not been a wonderful one. Utterly at the mercy of more advanced civilizations, they were eaten, enslaved, purged, and once in a while, peacefully integrated. When left to their own devices, they often destroyed themselves in a blaze of nuclear fire or met their end to asteroids. It was a tough life.

As with how one of our goals with Overlord was to make vassalization more enjoyable as either Overlord or Subject, we wanted to make interactions with Pre-FTL civilizations more interesting and robust. There should be valuable reasons to consider observation and non-interference, but we also wanted to take the chance to make the interactions you do have with them more meaningful - and update them to utilize game systems that have been added over the years.

Pre-FTL Civilizations now progress through the technological ages in order, with more ways to influence their progress, and allows you to do things such as partially enlighten a civilization before choosing other approaches to dealing with them. We’ve also introduced an Awareness level that can affect things like how quickly they advance and what kinds of interactions you can perform with them. Things occurring in a Pre-FTL civilization’s system might be noticed by them! Renaissance astronomers might find your Observation Post with their telescopes or observe a naval battle that occurred in the system, and even Bronze Age philosophers might comment that the fact that the moon just blew up might not have been a natural occurrence - though they admittedly might not correctly attribute it to the acts of alien life.

Old events have been brought up to our current standards, and some of the Observation missions previously located on the Observation Post are now split between Diplomacy and Espionage for the various overt or covert activities

View attachment 939137
Work in Progress view from our Observation Post.
This Early Space Age civilization hasn’t detected us yet, and will be joining us amongst the stars soon. We can’t do any overt Diplomacy with them without revealing ourselves first.

This Stone Age civilization suffered a bit of Stellar Culture Shock when we revealed our presence.​

We’re also adding some incentives for keeping them around and preventing them from being culturally contaminated by more advanced civilizations. While the space-faring civilizations generally agree on some things like the basic laws of physics and the existence of the number zero, sometimes the path not normally taken can reveal unexpected results.

View attachment 939138​

The Universe is Cruel, But You Are Not Alone​

We’ve added a lot of Origins since Federations, and three more will be in First Contact. While Knights of the Toxic God may still be the most verbose Origin, all three of these are lower tech starts with strong narrative and mechanical themes.

View attachment 939139​

Broken Shackles is one of the ideas that started back in our Federations Origins brainstorming documents, then called Escaped Slaves. Originally conceived of as a mechanically focused, Challenging Origin with unique starting conditions, we nearly put it into Overlord before deciding that there was so much more potential to explore with this story.

CGInglis will show you where it went since then, telling us more about it next week.

View attachment 939140​

The Payback origin was first conceived as an origin to fulfill the trope of a plucky civilization defeating an invading alien force. The event art associated with this should be familiar if you’ve watched the announcement trailer. This one’s also a Challenging Origin, and CheerfulGoth will be telling you all about it.

During development we thought “wouldn’t it be interesting if these two Origins were linked, with the same empire as their nemesis?” This brought us Minamar Specialized Industries, the galaxy’s most noble Megacorp, selflessly taking it upon themselves to bring countless civilizations into the Space Age for a small fee.

View attachment 939141​

PDS_Iggy explores the fine line between paranoia and prudence in Fear of the Dark. We initially considered this one a Challenging Origin as well, but as we added more and more to it we decided it’s different, rather than difficult.

How do you think we would react if one day Venus… Exploded?

Do Not Believe Your Ocular Organs​

It’s hard to maintain a low profile when your Observation Post is clearly visible, hanging in the sky. You can try to rely on the people you’re studying mistaking it for the domicile of the gods, but a more reliable solution would be to hide it from view.

View attachment 939142​

By performing research into new areas of Field Manipulation your Scientists can discover methods of generating cloaking fields around observation posts and science ships, and while peaceful uses are nice and all… Your Admirals will salivate at the idea of a fleet of cloaked Frigates sneaking up on an unsuspecting Starbase.

Cloaking was one of the remaining major sci-fi tropes we hadn’t explored yet, and seemed like a natural fit alongside the infiltration and observation themes of the Story Pack. Once we’ve managed to decrypt his notes, Alfray Stryke will be sharing the details on Cloaking and Detection.

Contact is Coming​

We hope you’ll enjoy First Contact as much as we did making it. See you next week with information on Broken Shackles.

Click here to wishlist the First Contact Story Pack!

Sounds really great. I would love to send cloaked science ships deep into enemy territory to study their worlds and capabilities.

 

[kwheeler]

Apart from the potentially esoteric gains from protecting pre-ftl civilizations, it seems like they could also be a significant source of unity for some civilization (Star Trek Federation-like cultures, an alternative type of bio-trophies for caretakers or even as glorious hunting grounds for Predator like cultures)

And they could be sources of political prestige, diplomatic power and influence if the galactic society or fallen empires decided to support that sort of thing (sort of like how the galactic society in the Uplift books, decided that uplifting was the primary source of influence)

Ohhh! I love the idea of Predator-like cultures using primitive civilizations as hunting preserves.

 

[kwheeler]

i assume there'll be ways to reduce awareness via espionage? will you also be able to stifle their progress through it?

Yes! I often have a space-age culture in my territory that's on the cusp of developing full empire status, and my only choices are to let them eat one of my systems when they emerge, or else invade them.

I would love a third option of using espionage to retard their technological innovation while I worry about other things.

 

[kwheeler]

Isn't there already an all seeing megastructure?

There is.... I wonder if we need an "all-cloaking megastructure" as a counterpart, one that blinds other empires to what's going on in one system (or handful of systems).

Or alternatively, for a variant of the "all-cloaking megastructure" that cloaks your system (or handful of systems) against enemy espionage, making any ops against you more difficult.

 

[kwheeler]

Cloaked raiding ships for Barbaric Despoilers and Criminal Syndicates, would make for an excellent way for them to become more of threat in the game. Especially, if you allow such empires to disguise their ships as pirate fleets that allow them to raid neighboring systems worlds for slaves and resources without needing fully declare war.

Pirates could also become more useful, as they could stay in hiding and need to be flushed out with patrol fleets, rather than stupidly coming out of hiding and then getting themselves wasted by the nearest fleet or defense platforms.

Cloaked pirate attacks! Now there's a thought.

It might also be interesting for espionage-heavy empires if they could assign spies to pirate nests, and successful operations makes the pirates visible and vulnerable to attack by your patrols.

Maybe early-game pirates are the regular visible type we know and hate, and maybe-mid-game pirates develop cloaking tech, and then they require special interactions to counter. For megacorps, maybe they could have an option to bribe the pirates to change their home base and move to a neighboring empire's trade lanes.....

 

[kwheeler]

It should definatelly turn the species xenophile if they notice an alien species saving them.

Or at least give them a strong attraction to that ethic if not insta-flip them, yeah.
Alternatively, it could give spiritualists a strong attraction to religion, if they assume the alien species is a pantheon of gods saving them.

 

[kwheeler]

How will the new story pack interact with Rogue Servitors?

I often play Rogue Servitors, but I want them to serve only one species, not "adopt" every sentient in the galaxy as bio-trophies after conquering a system.

In the past, that meant if I wanted to steal a planet from a primitive race and then colonize it with my own preferred pet species, I couldn't invade the primitive world or they would "flip" to become bio-trophies.

So, in the new primitive interaction system, are Rogue Servitors limited to choosing whether to adopt primitives and incorporate them as bio-trophies OR can the Rogue Servitors do some dark "house-keeping" to eliminate the local primitives and clear room for the empty planet to become a playground for their pet sentient species?